Ea II

The second Ea album is upon us, the second output of doom metal based on ancient sacral texts of dead languages (of which no info is enclosed this time either). I most certainly enjoyed the "Ea taesse", but where that album carried a slight drone-esque feeling "Ea II" travels to more epic landscapes. The ambient sections still haunt the sound, and as the opening track begins the ambience that is the intro keeps getting elements added to it, until it suddenly erupts into full on funeral doom. Ea cleverly uses this build up in instruments, where elements are constantly added; increasing power of the atmosphere, be it beautiful piano lines, a haunting organ section or just a guitar riff oozing of melancholy.

The slow pounding drumming accompanied by the heavy, angst-ridden riffage (which really contains all the elements that makes funeral doom so misanthropic) builds up a great saddened aura surrounding the music. You can sense the personal torment, of an individual on the edge of ending his/her miserable life, come through the music. And with the organ added it takes on an even more bombastic edge, and it feels almost like a twisted church mass. As the slowly growled, tortured vocals sets in the atmosphere is incredibly stark. This is right up there with the best of them; Worship, Mournful Congregation, Thergothon and whatnot. But Ea has some aspects that reminds me a bit of Shape of Despair as well, in particular the more melodic elements.

And just as you think you know their sound of heavy-as-hell funeral doom metal the song breaks down into sounds of dripping water and a subtle keyboard. It’s so incredibly haunting, and for a brief moment you can hear a heartbeat come through the ambience. And as the funeral doom comes back there’s an acoustic guitar lurking somewhere in the background, whereas incredibly melancholic guitar lines has firmly set itself in the foreground. It really is a masterful couple of tracks with such variation, so saddened and oppressing. I usually despise music with too much ambience, and grow bored with it. But what Ea does is slickly mix it in with the doom, so it’s never really pure ambient noise, but just a daunting aspect of the already nuanced funeral doom metal. I’d strongly recommend this to any fan of the genre as long as you don’t care about lyrics and members involved (the two tracks don’t even have titles).

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net